Hochul, Homan and Trump in three-person standoff over immigration

Gov. Kathy Hochul appears to have put President Donald Trump in a tricky spot as his border czar Tom Homan promises increased immigration enforcement in New York – even though the president himself has previously assured the governor he would take no action unless she asked. 

Meanwhile, as Homan publicly gears up to flood the state with additional federal immigration agents, a new law he cited as necessitating the increased presence doesn’t actually take effect for another three months.

While legislators and Hochul negotiated increased immigration protections earlier this year, Homan promised he would flood New York with additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should the measures be approved. Now that Hochul has indeed signed into law a slew of measures as part of the state budget, he is doubling down, telling Fox & Friends on Monday he would send “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen in New York City.” “We’re going to send more ICE agents to New York because you took away the efficiencies of safe arrests in county jails,” he said, adding, “I keep my promises.”

Except Hochul is counting on Trump to keep his promise, too, and has . repeatedly pointed to the president’s assurance he would not send additional ICE agents to New York unless she asked. (After meeting with Homan in March, she said “that request will never occur.”)

Asked whether she trusts the president to keep his word, Hochul told reporters Monday that she would remind Trump of his promise – but only before pivoting into a veiled threat of the potential consequences of breaking it. “If they come here and go throughout New York state with a surge in ICE, there won’t be Republicans standing in this state,” Hochul said. “This will be weaponized against them. That’s not why they would not do it, but they should just look at the political calculation.”

Homan elaborated on Tuesday while speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., that he was suggesting that the law’s new prohibition of 287(g) agreements between ICE and local law enforcement would warrant more manpower from ICE. Those agreements can range from formalizing information-sharing to using municipal jail space for immigration enforcement purposes to deputizing local police to enforce civil immigration law. “It’s math. … Now we’ve got to send more agents to do the job it would have took one person,” Homan said.

The border czar has refused to say when the operation in New York will begin aside from “it’s coming,” but the section of the law Homan is most concerned about doesn’t take effect immediately. Although localities cannot enter new agreements now that the budget is signed, already signed agreements remain valid for two-and-a-half more months. Per bill language, the particular statute voiding existing 287(g) agreements goes into effect 90 days after Hochul signs the measure, which she did on May 27.

“These are common sense measures to make sure that law enforcement will continue to work with federal law enforcement to ferret out criminals, and for anyone to say otherwise is not telling the truth,” Hochul told reporters in Syracuse Tuesday following Homan’s most recent comments. She said she was “proud” to have signed the new immigration protections, but again reiterated that nothing in the law prevents cooperation to apprehend criminals. “We are very focused on helping communities be safe and local law enforcement should be working with ICE to help remove criminals,” Hochul said. “Full stop.”